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1960s

October 31, 2016

All of us at the FIDM Museum were saddened to learn of James Galanos' passing at the age of 92 over the weekend. The Los Angeles-based couture designer was known for dressing the 20th century's brightest socialites, including Nancy Reagan and Betsy Bloomingdale. Galanos and Bloomingdale met at the Amelia Gray boutique in Beverly Hills; she later called his atelier "couture on Sepulveda Boulevard!" Bloomingdale admired his fine fabrics and beautiful construction, and remarked that his clothes were so well made, they could be worn inside out. Their relationship was highlighted in the FIDM Museum's 2009 exhibition High Style: Betsy Bloomingdale and the Haute Couture. Curators Kevin Jones and Christina Johnson had the opportunity to speak with Galanos while researching the couture process for this exhibition (watch a video with excerpts from that interview here). Galanos was a master of simple shapes, exquisite tailoring, and restraint; his designs were always elegant and beautifully crafted, but never excessive. Read about the Museum's 1950s Galanos cocktail dress, early 1960s suit, and late 1960s nude-look ensembles, and scroll down to see more Galanos highlights from the FIDM Museum Collection.

James Galanos with Betsy Bloomingdale at the opening of High Style: Betsy Bloomingdale and the Haute Couture, 2009. Photo by ABImages.

Evening ensemble1969Gift of Mrs. Alfred Bloomingdale2006.116.21A-E

Betsy Bloomingdale wearing a Galanos ensemble and turban by Halston at the Bal Oriental, thrown in 1969 by the Baron Alexis de Rede on the Île Saint-Louis, Paris. Mrs. Bloomingdale called this party "One of the last great balls in Paris," with live elephants in the courtyard and all the guests dressed exquisitely.

January 28, 2016

Best remembered today as Marilyn Monroe's favorite designer, Ceil Chapman was famous in the 1940s and '50s for her glamorous yet affordable evening looks. Her ready-to-wear "dream dresses," as the New York Times called them in 1957, were designed to grace the debutante balls, senior proms, cocktail parties, dinner dances, and swanky nightclub outings that filled women's social calendars in mid-century New York.1 "Here's one house that understands the importance of the cocktail dress," Women's Wear Daily remarked approvingly.2

Ceil Chapman, New Yorkc. 1954-1959Gift of Barbara Jacobs89.388.1AB

Chapman launched her eponymous label in 1940, after briefly partnering with Gloria Vanderbilt and her twin sister, Thelma, in a company called "Her Ladyship Gowns." She became a favorite of New York's theater crowd before expanding her fan base to Hollywood. She created Elizabeth Taylor's trousseau when she married her first husband, Nicky Hilton, in 1950, and dressed starlets like Deborah Kerr, Eva Gabor, and Jayne Mansfield as well as Monroe. A tireless self-promoter, Chapman appeared in magazine advertisements endorsing girdles, hairspray, Playtex, and even Western Union telegrams. She provided gowned models for a Cadillac ad campaign and loaned dresses to NBC in exchange for on-air promotional credit.

Detail

Chapman was known for her elaborately draped bodices, even patenting her draping techniques. She argued that while a male designer would sketch a dress and then assume that "he can take his sketch and drape it around a figure and any woman can wear it," a female designer "isn't thinking of a drawing. She is thinking of a live person wearing it."3 Chapman revived the bias cut popular in the 1930s, applying it to sophisticated, sexy gowns in expensive-looking materials. Other design signatures included dramatic décolletages, beading, and hips accentuated by rosettes, pleats, peplums, and padding. Many of these features can be seen in this cocktail dress and matching belt of cream-colored satin, machine-embroidered with faux pearls. This dress may come from Chapman's 1959 collection, which Women's Wear Daily described as "a series of after-dark dresses.... Some of the most exquisite embroideries of crystal beads, sequins and pearls are worked out in Persian-like patterns ... with slender skirts for an elongated line."4

Detail

Chapman retired in 1965, only to try to revive her label in 1969. But fashion had already moved on from the formal, corseted, ladylike elegance of her heyday. Chapman died on July 13, 1979, after a long battle with lung cancer, unaware that her third husband, Tom Rogers, had succumbed to a heart attack a few days earlier.5 Today, her gowns are highly prized by vintage collectors and celebrities hoping to recapture some of that Marilyn magic: at a 2014 movie premiere, Kate Upton walked the red carpet in a 1950s Ceil Chapman cocktail dress.

January 26, 2016

Long before he earned his reputation as "fashion's knock-off king," Victor Costa (b. 1935) created a line of Bohemian-inspired dresses—including this maxi dress wittily woven with hearts, clubs, spades, and diamonds—under the Romantica label.1

Romantica by Victor Costa1968-73Gift of Melissa Manlove2006.870.34

A career in fashion was always in the cards for Costa. Growing up in Houston's depressed Fifth Ward, where his Italian-American family owned a grocery store, he sold handmade paper doll clothes and, later, prom dresses to his classmates.2 He went on to study fashion at the Pratt Institute in New York before attending the prestigious École de la Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne. In 1958, he married his high-school sweetheart, making her wedding gown from a pattern his classmates had smuggled out of Christian Dior’s atelier.3 The following year, the couple returned to New York, where Costa continued making wedding dresses for a string of bridalwear designers. This formative experience cemented his love of feminine florals and flounces, as well as his sense of sartorial drama. "Special occasion dresses have always been my hallmark," he once confessed.4In 1965, Costa became the in-house designer for Suzy Perette, a large New York label known for producing line-for-line copies of French haute couture. At the time, Seventh Avenue manufacturers routinely paid a "caution" of several thousand dollars to Paris couture houses, which allowed them to attend their shows, sketch their designs, and produce inexpensive copies of couture gowns, which they sold for as little as $40.5 Costa, who has a photographic memory, showed such flair for the work that he was rewarded with his own line of original designs, Romantica by Victor Costa for Suzy Perette, in 1968.6 The label grew to comprise 90 percent of the company's sales.

Detail

In 1973, the family relocated back to Texas after Costa's young daughter developed asthma. Costa saw the move as an opportunity to strike out on his own. He bought a Dallas manufacturer of plus-sized clothing and transformed it into his own label, Victor Costa. Although he continued to travel to New York frequently, he made the most of his unique status as the resident designer in a conservative, cash-flush city obsessed with dressing up.7 Costa’s taste for frilly but formal eveningwear for suited the debutantes and dowagers of Dallas well. As the city’s oil boom went bust, Costa discovered a demand for inexpensive knockoffs of high-end designers like Karl Lagerfeld, Scaasi, Bill Blass, and Christian Lacroix--men whose exuberant aesthetic mirrored his own. His fame grew as his clothes appeared on television shows like Falcon Crest, Moonlighting, and Dynasty and celebrity fans including Whitney Houston, Morgan Fairchild, Betsy Bloomingdale, and Ivana Trump.8 While his tactics were sometimes controversial--he was once thrown out of Neiman Marcus when an Oscar de la Renta rep spotted him lurking at a trunk show--Costa argued that "the word 'fashion' would not exist if there were no copying."9 Given his reputation as a gifted copycat, it's no surprise that Costa even knocked himself off, briefly reviving the Romantica label for J.C. Penney in 1994.10

January 14, 2016

With pajama pants and shirts, slip dresses, and boudoir style back in fashion, this ensemble from 1968 recalls the trend for "evening pyjamas" in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Pyjamas first left the house in the 1930s, when women wore fashionable, wide-legged versions to the beach, parties, and informal dinners; some daring young things even wore them to the theatre. Evening pyjamas enjoyed a powerful resurgence in the late 1960s, as pants became more acceptable for women around the clock. Though women were still banned from wearing trousers in many restaurants and formal settings, evening pyjamas were a "heavenly way to dress for small dinners, parties, dancing in the moonlight," according to Vogue.1

In 1967, designer Leo Narducci advertised a striped "party pajama," poetically described as "a visual expression of your most exciting self. To make evenings all the more interesting, at your home, or somebody else's."4Indeed, pyjamas seemed to have encouraged women to indulge in adventurous sartorial role-playing. Coco Chanel--who had pioneered the concept of beach pajamas on the French Riviera in the 1930s--introduced sleek gold lamé and silk shantung "dinner pajamas" in the fall of 1965. Donald Brooks' flamenco-accented evening pyjamas of 1967 were constructed of flounces of black lace, with one shoulder bared. This ensemble of 1968 was made for Los Angeles socialite Betsy Bloomingdale by Marc Bohan of Christian Dior. Though the yellow qiana nylon crepe is fairly subdued, the tunic-style top has gold-embroidered epaulets and a belt trimmed with gold beads and ostrich feathers--typically exotic touches. Far from sleepwear, this is an outfit made for staying up all night.

January 12, 2016

Legendary couturier André Courrèges passed away Thursday, age 92. This post from 2015 highlights one of his many fashion innovations, the "Space Age" style, the influence of which can still be felt today. See more of the FIDM Museum's Courrèges collection here and here.

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Fashion landed on the moon long before man did. In the early 1960s, in the throes of the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union, French couture designers like Pierre Cardin, André Courrèges, and Paco Rabanne sent so-called “Space Age” fashions down the Paris runways. These sleek, minimalist, and, often, unisex garments in high-tech synthetic fabrics turned women into chic astronauts and groovy aliens.

Science fiction films like 2001 and Barbarella (costumed by Rabanne) and TV shows like Space: 1999 (costumed by Rudi Gernreich) imagined a utopian future of tunics, trousers, flat booties, helmets, and mini-dresses in lunar white or bold geometric patterns. As Cardin explained: “The clothes I prefer are those I invent for a life that doesn’t exist yet—the world of tomorrow.”

With a Space X rocket launch scheduled for today, a new Space Age is taking off, bringing its attendant fashion inspiration: Gucci’s Fall 2014 ready-to-wear show paired mod shifts with patent-leather boots, while Rodarte presented a Star Wars-themed collection. Christian Dior’s Spring 2015 couture show included retro astronaut jumpsuits. But these nostalgic trips back to the future may prove to be less influential than fashions created with the same new technologies used by the current generation of space scientists. Take Slow Factory boutique founder Celine Semaan Vernon, who transforms high-resolution NASA images of Earth into printed silk scarves, or Nervous System, the design studio behind the 3-D printed dress. The results are truly out of this world.

January 05, 2016

In the late 1960s, the disaffected youth of the Left Bank (or "Rive Gauche") neighborhood of Paris trawled the city's open-air flea markets looking for romantic embellishments like fringed shawls, Indian jewelry, and antique lace. French designers began to "take this costumey rich mood and raise it up to couture," but risked having their clothes dubbed "hippy" in the process--a term that simultaneously suggested intellectual, moral, and material poverty. "No doubt the lesser houses will be sewing on all the lace and feathers and fringe which the suppliers are reportedly supplying by the bagful," Women's Wear Daily sniffed in January 1968, as Parisian couturiers prepared their spring collections. "The better houses, let's hope, will let their new, free, underground spirit lead them . . . to the essence of the whole bit: Beautiful Individualism. . . . What, after all, are the hippies creating with their extravagance but a pauper's notion of Luxury?"1

Dress and BeltYves Saint Laurent, ParisSpring/Summer 19682003.40.35AB

This fringed silk minidress from Yves Saint Laurent--a young couturier so attuned to street fashion that he had launched a ready-to-wear line, Rive Gauche, in 1966--epitomizes what The Chicago Tribune called "the new come-hither look" for Spring 1968. "That slippery, dancing fringe is the key to the new sexy fashions," the Tribune noted, in reference to a photo of a very similar model. "St. Laurent draped one slithery little print and bordered it in black fringe: The look spelled out the 1940s sensuousness of Rosie the Riveter on her night off."2 The swinging, swaying fringe at the hem, belt, and attached scarf danced--alternately concealing and revealing--as the wearer moved to the beat of her own drum. Saint Laurent repeated the fringed hem on a velvet minidress in his Rive Gauche collection the following season; Vogue extolled the allure of "the fringe swinging against sheer black leggy legs."3

Detail

Within a year, the sleek, sensual "fringe binge" had conquered fashion. It no longer evoked the boudoir alone; fringed leather garments often incorporated Native American influences. In a fringe-themed spread in the August 1969 issue of Vogue, British model Penelope Tree--"whose great fringy eyes have, by now, become household eyes on two continents"--modeled fringed dresses, tunics, ponchos, boots, belts, and bikinis by Bonnie Cashin, Paraphernalia, and Giorgio di Saint'Angelo. "Fringe, more fringe, even the fringe has fringe. Fringe all over clothes, maybe a fantasy fringe wig of ribbon or yarn."4 It may have been hippy, but it was undeniably chic.

December 08, 2015

Fashion designer Norman Norell (1900-1972) was famous for his love of sparkly sequins and beading, which he applied to evening sheaths, pajama pantsuits, and even jacket linings. As he once said, "If you're going out at night, for heaven's sake wear something that explodes and goes pow. A dress that doesn't knock-em-dead when you come into a room is absolutely no good these days."1 Although he hated the term "cocktail dress," Norell may have perfected the form with this simple shirtdress, whose Peter Pan collar and prim buttons are set off by the "pow" of deep bands of silver bugle beads at the cuffs and hem.

Norman Norell, New York1966Gift of Clarissa Dyer2003.794.9

A master of strict elegance, Norell's clothes were never flashy or tacky; he used "yards and yards of crystal beading" to give his eveningwear a rich look, combining metallic embellishment with matte fabrics in muted colors.2 In 1962, Women's Wear Daily praised his "bugle-beaded borders by night."3 He continued to experiment with beaded borders in subsequent collections. This dress is probably the one Vogue had in mind in March of 1966, when it described "a soft, small, icy-blue crepe with sleeves caught at the wrist, completely plain, except for a ten-inch band of silver bugle beads shivering above the knee."4 The magazine had pictured a very similar Norell dress the previous month, calling it "the evening dress of the season--short, knee-baring, geometric, easy and snug at the shoulders, swinging wide at the hem in the manner of the trapeze."5 The combination of traditional tailoring with a contemporary perspective defined the Norell look. As Vogue put it:"Modern to the bone, without a flicker of nostalgia, his clothes at the same time bring back the best of an era of great elegance."6

November 24, 2015

New York's Seventh Avenue may be America's fashion capital, but California has always been the heart of the American sportswear industry. "The California pace is easy, outdoorsy, sunny," Vogue declared in 1954. "California clothes . . . suit it perfectly."1 Phil Rose of California was one of the many garment companies based in the Golden State producing inexpensive, easy-to-wear clothes appropriate for active, informal lifestyles. The label became known for melding Italianate style--the "mod" look of the 1960s--with the casual California aesthetic.

This shift dress of multicolored wool exemplifies the company's brand of cheap chic. A similar dress was illustrated in Women's Wear Daily in April 1967, described as a "shift in paintbox colors framed in black ... an abstract art arrangement in wool," designed for Phil Rose by Irene Saltern (1911-2005).2 Born in Germany, Saltern attended fashion school in Berlin, where she lived next door to Albert Einstein. In the late 1930s, Saltern moved to Hollywood to pursue a career in costume design, working on more than 35 films for Republic Pictures and United Artists before turning her talents to fashion design. In 1950, she became head designer for Tabak, one of the early Los Angeles sportswear companies.

Detail

As early as 1944, the Los Angeles Times noted: "Stressing the importance of line and silhouette rather than intricate detail, Miss Saltern uses a technique which she calls 'optical illusion,' a play of bright colors against dark shades that trim the figure down to slim, graceful proportions"--the same technique used in this dress.3

November 05, 2015

"How has this slender young thing, completely unspoiled, unpretentious, in less than one year jumped to the top of the modeling world?" Women's Wear Daily asked on January 4, 1967.1 The "slender young thing" was, of course, Twiggy, born Leslie Hornby in London in 1949. She had booked her first photo shoot for the newspaper The Express the previous February. The resulting spread--headlined "The Look of '66"--was such a success that she had to drop out of school to keep up with all her bookings.

Twiggy Mini-PurseMattel, Inc.1967Gift of Kevin Jones2006.155.1A-F

In March 1967, the 17-year-old arrived in New York, where she was welcomed by a media circus similar to the one that had greeted The Beatles three years earlier. She made her US Vogue debut days later, modeling French ready-to-wear designed for youthful figures and budgets.2 "Twiggy is called Twiggy because she looks as though a strong gale would snap her in two and dash her to the ground," the magazine explained, adding:

In a profession where thinness is essential, Twiggy is of such meagre constitution that other models stare at her. Her legs look as though she had not had enough milk as a baby and her face has that expression one feels Londoners wore in the Blitz--a look that is essentially British--dogged and touching simultaneously. She has an extraordinary beauty--a beauty that would have been unnoticed ten years ago and would, in any other age, have made her an outcast in the marriage stakes. Her face might have been conceived by a computer to match the requirements of the face of the sixties--bony, pale-skinned, big-eyed, vulnerable, lacquered with a stony stare of arrogance. The look of arrogance is a happy accident. Twiggy wouldn't know what arrogance means.3

At just 5' 6" and 91 pounds, with huge gray eyes and spindly legs, Twiggy resembled a deer caught in headlights, or a child playing dress-up in miniskirts and makeup. But her humble background and approachable personality were as important to her celebrity as her perfectly on-trend "London look." Young, inexperienced, androgynous, and working class, she had freckles, a limited vocabulary, and a Cockney accent that inevitably invited Eliza Doolittle comparisons. "In any other decade, these things would have combined to prevent Twiggy's being a success," Vogue noted. "Not any more. She has got to the top." As Cecil Beaton observed: "Today's look comes from below. The working-class girl with money in her pocket can be as chic as the deb. That's what Twiggy is all about."4

Detail

Girls with money in their pockets could purchase a wide range of Twiggy-branded merchandise in hopes of emulating her swinging style. Twiggy signed a million-pound ($2.8 million) deal to license her name to a clothing line, Twiggy Styles. It was launched with a runway show in London in May 1967; Twiggy herself was one of the models. Yardley London produced a collection of Twiggy-endorsed cosmetics, including false eyelashes made of real, straight hair. "The look is the same natural innocent look of Twiggy ... her lashes are straight not curly."5 The plastic "Twiggy Mini-Purse" above by Mattel came equipped with a mirror, gold pencil, notepad, nail file, and photo holder. The bright orange Trimfit opaque tights below were "inspired by Twiggy for the 'now' people." Twiggy was also offered film roles, an eponymous TV series, a perfume deal, and a recording contract, which produced a single, I Need Your Hand in Mine, that Vogue called "quite appallingly bad."6

Twiggy's star burned bright but fast. Women's Wear Daily was suspicious of her from the start, derisively nicknaming her "the paper girl"--not because she was so thin, but because she was so insubstantial. By the mid-1970s, Twiggy had moved on from modeling to acting, and her ingenue looks were considered not just outmoded but downright dangerous due to an alarming increase in anorexia, dubbed "Twiggy syndrome." Vogue estimated there were five times as many anorexics in the US in 1976 as in 1966, 90 percent of them women between the ages of 13 and 30.7 The supermodels of the '70s were more relatable: older and American, with long hair and healthy curves. These women--including Lauren Hutton, Cybill Shepherd, Ali MacGraw, Rene Russo, Beverly Johnson, Janice Dickinson, and Cheryl Tiegs--paved the way for the glamazon cover girls of the 1980s.

October 27, 2015

Last week's announcement that Raf Simons is leaving Christian Diorreminded us of this 2012 post on Marc Bohan, who designed for the House of Dior for thirty years. Simons is only the fifth designer to hold the position of creative director since Dior's death in 1957, after Yves Saint Laurent, Bohan, Gianfranco Ferré, and John Galliano. What does it take to design for Dior, and who should fill Simons' shoes?

When Marc Bohan presented his first haute couture collection for Christian Dior in 1961, the New York Times reported pandemonium: "the shouting, clapping, surging mob at the press showing caused chaos in the elegant salon. M. Bohan was...kissed, mauled, and congratulated. Chairs were toppled."1 Bohan's collection was inspired by the 1920s, and featured short chiffon dresses with dropped waists and double-breasted jackets with a straight line. The enthusiastic reception to Bohan's collection signaled not only approval of his designs, but also relief that the most influential house in the haute couture was making a comeback after the rocky years of Yves Saint Laurent's tenure. Appointed head designer for Dior after the founding designer's death in 1957, the young and mercurial Saint Laurent's first collection for Dior was warmly received. But Saint Laurent's 1960 "Beatnik" collection, which featured leather skirts and black turtlenecks, was too much for the women who patronized the haute couture. In contrast, Bohan was an experienced designer, who had worked in the haute couture since 1945. His first position was at Robert Piguet, though he soon moved to Molyneux, later becoming head designer at Maison Patou.

Bohan assumed the mantle of Dior just as the world of the haute couture was beginning to change dramatically. In retrospect, the years 1947-1957 are generally considered the pinnacle of the haute couture. With Christian Dior at the forefront, haute couture designers were the arbiters of chic, producing exquisite fashions for the elite. These creations were then modified by manufacturers and/or retailers to appeal to the eye and wallet of everywoman. But in the 1960s, this system went head over heels as young women began disregarding the dictates of the haute couture in favor of diverse styles developed by and for the younger generation. This emerging youthquake would permanently alter the way that haute couture was produced and perceived. Saint Laurent's "Beatnik" collection, which was influenced by the style of Parisian bohemians and not the elite patrons of the haute couture, actually predicted the emerging relationship between haute couture and street fashion.

S2001.27.1

London was a hotbed of street fashion, with numerous small boutiques offering youthful styles at relatively inexpensive prices. Young designers with little experience, not the years of training required in the haute couture, opened boutiques. Mary Quant's Bazaar, which featured her schoolgirlish minidresses, was one of the first. Aware that something was happening in London, Marc Bohan travelled to the newly fashionable city in 1966. Though impressed with the energy of Swinging London, Bohan wasn't persuaded by the style of its residents. On returning to France, Bohan made a remark that indicated his belief in the primacy of the haute couture: “A couturier’s job is dressing a woman, making her elegant…Our client cannot wear [youthquake fashions] and look beautiful.”2

Though Bohan was aware that his clients were not ready to adopt the styles emerging from the youthquake, the peek-a-boo bodice of this white sheath dress suggests that youthquake fashions were influencing Bohan. During the 1950s and early 60s, haute couture evening gowns weren't very revealing. Strapless gowns were popular and lowered necklines were not unusual, but evening dresses were typically more decorous than titillating. In contrast, the bodice of this Marc Bohan for Christian Dior evening dress is deliberately provocative. Even though Bohan realized that neither he nor his clients were ready to abandon haute couture and adopt youthquake fashions, this design indicates how the haute couture translated one aspect of youthquake style: exposed skin.

During the 1960s, skin was on display. Miniskirts rose to great heights, exposing almost the entire length of a woman's legs for the first time in decades. Sheer blouses, usually embellished with two strategically placed pockets, were fashionable. Rudi Gernreich was probably the most notorious designer of transparent fashions, including a see-through vinyl shirt and his famous topless bathing suit. The peekaboo lacing on this pair of green and white suede boots from our collection frames and reveals an unexpected area of the body. Exposed skin was equated with freedom of body and mind, an indication that you weren't bound by the normal strictures of society.